Enrico van de Laar

Leaving Data Masterminds

The end of a year always triggers a moment of reflection for
me. A chance to look back at all the things you have done this year, the things
you learned and how you can improve yourself to reach the goals you set out.

After spending the last couple of weeks of 2018 thinking about what I want to achieve, and how I want to achieve it, I concluded that I will be leaving Data Masterminds and continue on inside my own company Dataheroes.

This was not an easy decision to make. I started out a
little more than a year ago together with André, Eelco and William to build
Data Masterminds together and one does not simply abandon all the things we
shared (and build) during that journey. During that year I learned a lot about
building a company, developing products from the ground up and working together
with the awesome people I just mentioned. However, while looking back on what I
want to achieve and what areas in the data industry I want to focus on
personally, I started to miss the field of work I grew so excited for in the
last years: advanced analytics and data engineering. While we did run into some
advanced analytics works every now and then, it isn’t the primary field in
which Data Masterminds is active. That was the choice we made when we started
Data Masterminds, to focus on the data platform landscape.

For me, this means I will have to leave Data Masterminds so
I can focus on returning to the field I love so much. Thankfully everyone
around me supports me in this decision, and even though it sucks to leave
something good behind, I always learned you should follow your feelings and do
what you enjoy, even though that sometimes means you have to walk away.

I wish André, Eelco and William all the best and I am sure
they are going to do amazing things with Data Masterminds!